About an hour ago (8pm) I was out in the front yard with three of my four kids. They and the other neighbor kids were all running around causing summertime havoc. All was right with the world. My youngest daughter (3 yrs old) wanted to see inside a birds nest that is in our front yard. The nest is nestled in a young oak about eight feet off the ground. Needless to say, when your adorable three year old daughter asks you very nicely if she can see the baby birds in the nest you are pretty much morally obligated to do everything short of cutting down the tree to give her what she wants. So, of course I am smoking a pipe, enjoying the kids playing and enjoying the drop in temperature. I am also wearing a broad rimmed hat that is nearly a part of my head when I'm outdoors. I don't like sunburn. I lifted all 29 pounds of my little girl up to the nest so she could get a good look at whatever was inside. Just as she reached maximum elevation everything went terribly wrong. Her foot kicked back rather innocently to try and balance (I don't blame her, she's six feet higher off the ground than normal), the foot kicked both my pipe and hat. The hat left my head, but the pipe remained mostly fixed. This was bad. The pipe emptied its rather hot contents onto my face and hair. Fortunately I wear glasses. About this point we were both making a somewhat controlled, fall/crash to the ground. I'm hoping she didn't pick up any new vocabulary words in that short fall. The trip down was pretty exciting. I was treated to the sound and smell of my burning hair and face (more hair than face). Lucky for me I have a thick mop on top of my head, needless to say I will be cutting my hair this evening. No real burns, but I think my dignity suffered more than my body. Yes, most of my neighbors were outside when this happened. They were a bit confused by my antics until I explained that I nearly burned my face off. Anyway, lesson learned here: don't lift something over your head while smoking a pipe, especially if the something has legs, or arms, or might just want to make you suffer. Hope you all find enjoyment in my loss of dignity and hair.
